Another fun Tapper/Carney tilt in the White House press room yesterday:
Carney can "reject the premise" of the question all he wants; as Hot Air's Tina Korbe writes, the ABC Newsman has the facts on his side:
When President Barack Obama jets to Scranton, Pa., Wednesday to promote his jobs package, he'll log his 56th event in a presidential battleground state this year, putting him well ahead of President George W. Bush's record-breaking swing-state travel in 2003. Mr. Obama's extensive travels this year have opened the president to criticism from Republicans that he is intertwining campaigning and governing at a time when he has called for bipartisanship on intractable national problems. Most of the cost is typically borne by taxpayers.
The president isn't merely scheduling "official" visits to battleground states, he's showing up to clang the demagoguery bell against Republicans for not passing several unpaid-for, unafforable, unrealistic elements of his thoroughly political "jobs" plan -- which is his re-election strategy. Oh, and he just happens to be showing up in places where he already has high-dollar fundraisers on the calendar. Yes, previous presidents have used this trick in the past. It's just that our beloved Captain HopenChange is far outpacing any of his predecessors in exploiting the practice. I'd call Obama a fraud who never hesitates to sell out his supposed good government "principles" if it'll give him an electoral boost, but we've known that for a long, long time. Candidate Obama promised to accept public financing for his general election campaign in 2008, then abandoned his promise when he realized he could raise a whole lot more on his own. Now he's more than happy to accept back-door public financing while dismissing even the suggestion that he might be doing exactly that.
Alleged Obama principle...
...meets Obama's dominant self interest: